Constructor: Philip Koski
Relative difficulty: Medium (oversized 15x16)
![]()
THEME: BEHIND A / PAYWALL (60A: With 63-Across, where some journalism is located ... or how to interpret the ends of 20-, 30- and 44-Across) — words meaning "PAY" (WAGE, SALARY) form "WALL"s behind which (i.e. on the right side of which) one can find a word meaning "an item of published journalism," in three theme answers:
Theme answers:
![]()
The basic concept is a weird one and I kind of like it. The grid looked very unpromising, with just two shaded Down answers and a top half that's just loaded with very short fill (all 3-4-5s up top). And progression through the grid didn't help me understand the theme at all. I could see WAGE and SALARY—those seemed related (in meaning as well as cluing ([___ gap] + [___ cap]), but what the hell they were doing vis-a-vis anything else in the grid was beyond me. Which means the revealer got to do its damn job, for once—it actually came as a surprise, and helped make sense out of nonsense (or seeming nonsense). The theme answers themselves aren't terribly exciting—love CINDERELLA STORY, but DEFINITE ARTICLE doesn't exactly send shivers up your spine, and man do I have an aversion to all longer answers with "ONE'S" in them (post-traumatic response to seeing A LOT ON ONE'S PLATE multiple times back in the '00s). Plus, I always want ONE'S to be YOUR. ONE'S just sounds affected. But anyway, the answers are all solid, and the revealer truly revealed, and got a LEGIT"aha" (or something like it) out of me, so thematically, we're good today. A nice modern concept (articles BEHIND A PAYWALL) illustrated in a cute graphic wordplay style by the grid.
Other things:
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]
Relative difficulty: Medium (oversized 15x16)
Theme answers:
- DEFINITE ARTICLE (20A: The) (ARTICLEappears on the other side of WAGE (7D: ___ gap))
- SPEAKS ONE'S PIECE (30A: Talks frankly) (PIECEappears on the other side of SALARY (33D: ___ cap))
- CINDERELLA STORY (44A: Success against all odds) (STORY also appears on the other side of SALARY)
"Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen" ("Hell's vengeance boils in my heart"), commonly abbreviated "Der Hölle Rache", is an aria sung by the Queen of the Night, a coloratura soprano part, in the second act of Mozart's opera The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte). It depicts a fit of vengeful rage in which the Queen of the Night places a knife into the hand of her daughter Pamina and exhorts her to assassinate Sarastro, the Queen's rival, else she will disown and curse Pamina.
Memorable with its upper register staccatos, the fast-paced and menacingly grandiose "Der Hölle Rache" is one of the most famous of all opera arias. This rage aria is often referred to as the Queen of the Night aria, although the Queen sings another distinguished aria earlier in the opera, "O zittre nicht, mein lieber Sohn".
• • •
[2D: "___ to Know" (1999 Marc Anthony hit)]
The one downside of this theme, though, was that it's executed in such a way that a lot (lot lot lot) of pressure is put on the center of the grid, and man can you feel it (in the form of creaky, wince-inducing fill). Literally all of my post-solve "ick" ink is concentrated in the middle of the grid. That is an extremely load-bearing part of the grid, as the theme gets incredibly dense through there—that SALARY"wall" has to hold back not one but two articles (PIECE and STORY). Usually, you spread out your themers so they have some space, some air between them, which allows you to not have to drive so many crosses through more than one themer, which in turn allows for cleaner fill overall. But here, those second and third themers are absolutely hugging each other, or may as well be, as ten (10!) crosses (including the SALARY wall) have to run through *both* of them. No wonder, then, that rows 5 through 11 are just thick with weakish fill, from partial nonsense like TRALA crossing partial nonsense like INA (which gives us a much-unwanted three "IN"s in this grid, all pretty close together (see also DID IN, CONFIDES IN). Then there's RAH next to LLC, then LAE (!?!?!?!?) (!?!?!!?!??!) (46D: Ka ___ (southernmost point in the U.S.)), which crosses the super redundant and awkward OPERA ARIA, and at the bottom of it all (fittingly), SEEPY, oof. [Flowing slowly] should be SEEPING and only SEEPING. My patience for the fill in this puzzle was flowing slowly away at this point, so it's a good thing that the revealer came along at the end and saved the day, turning this puzzle from something of a slog into something of a delight.
Other things:
- 35D: Wee (EENY)— I hate when the puzzle pretends that people use "EENY" as a standalone word. They use TINY. They do not use EENY except maybe as the first word in a choosing rhyme (EENY-meeny-miney-moe, if I'm spelling that correctly, which I'm probably not), or as the first part of the sing-songy childish phrase "EENY-weenie," which is probably actually gonna be "teeny-weeny" or "eensy-weensy." It's a cloying awful mess, this array of wordlike entities related to smallness.
- 11D: Lizard mascot with a Cockney accent (GEICO GECKO) — I guess this is supposed to be marquee fill, but I'm not a fan. Reads like product placement. Also, I'm just ****ing tired of that damn gecko. Why isn't he bygone yet? Speaking of ads, I did not watch the Super Bowl, because I don't care, but I did watch the Super Bowl Halftime show (several times now), which was amazing, and featured, among other people, crossword stalwart SZA! (you can watch it here—YouTube won't let me embed it in my blog)
- 3D: Tells private things (CONFIDES IN) — I think this alongside "ANY IDEAS?" (4D: "How will we ever get out of this mess?") was the non-thematic highlight of the day, but it also made getting started slightly difficult, in that I had a hard time parsing both answers, and thus a harder-than-usual time (for a Wednesday) whooshing out of that NW corner into the heart of the grid.
- 65A: Exhaustion from work (BURNOUT) / 66A: Without much hope (BLEAKLY)— good answers, but together on one line, they're a lot to take. BURNOUT BLEAKLY is a little too "capitalist dystopia" for me, pre-coffee. "Exhaustion from work!? Without much hope!?" Shut up, puzzle. You're supposed to be *not* bumming me out.
- 49A: "Take THAT" ("BOOM!")— had the "M" and wrote in "WHAM!" Then changed the "W" to "B" and wrote in "BLAM!" Sigh.
- 22D: Where a wedge may be used (TRAP) — had no idea what was going on here, even after I got the whole answer. Could not imagine what the TRAP was. Mouse TRAP? The TRAP in the plumbing below your sink? Was the "wedge" a shoe heel? Some kind of shim? This is what happens when you don't play golf. The TRAP is a sand trap (a golf course hazard), and the "wedge" is a type of club.
- 63D: Inexpensive beer, informally (PBR) — Pabst! Blue! Ribbon!
- 47D: Sign of a hound's happiness (TAILWAG) — this was another non-thematic part of the grid that I really liked. Nice to be welcomed (at the end of the solve) with a tail-wagging pupper. Who's a good boy!? This answer is. Yes he is. Yyyyes he is.
See you next time.
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]